


Unconsciously Trespassing

by Red Charade (traciller)



Series: Flash Tumblr Ficlets [22]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Bullying, First Meeting, M/M, No Dialogue, Pre-Slash, Self-Isolation, Shunning, farmer!Len, mentions of ostracizing, mentions of othering, mentions of police harassment, no powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 11:25:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6282697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traciller/pseuds/Red%20Charade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During a freak storm, Len finds a young man unconscious in one of his fields and only just has time to get them both to shelter before the storm really gets bad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unconsciously Trespassing

**Author's Note:**

> Most of it's build-up about how Len came to be a farmer.
> 
> Based on this Tumblr post: http://youreturningscarletscarlet.tumblr.com/post/140305918586/it-looks-like-len-was-a-farmer-boy-who-saved-a

Maybe Len did some sketchy things in the past when he was younger, his teens and first few years of his 20′s, before trying to turn his life around. Except…nobody would let him do it. The cops were always hassling him, people in town would give him wary looks even if he was just going to buy a cup of coffee or do something as mundane as grocery shopping. At first, he endured it, told himself he didn’t give a shit what anyone thought of him. And it was kind of true. If they didn’t like him, fine. Who cared? But, it’s the rumors and the hassling from the cops and the way mothers would hold their kids a little closer in the check-out line and give him looks like they thought he was going to corrupt their precious babies by virtue of proximity alone.

It wore him down eventually, got to be too much. He shouldn’t have to take this shit. He’d done his time and he hadn’t done anything wrong since then. He didn’t deserve this kind of treatment. So, he moves away. Not too far, because he can’t bring himself to leave Central for good. But, he goes to the outskirts, the rural routes, and buys a farm there once he’s saved up enough money.

He can live just fine there, he’s found out. His farm makes money, although not enough to be filthy rich or anything like that. Enough to live on comfortably and have some savings. And he can minimize the amount of times he has to go into town. He doesn’t have to spend as much on groceries or even go grocery shopping as often, because he can grow his own produce and he keeps some animals around too for milk, for eggs, for meat. He learned to hunt, too. For deer meat and for some things he doesn’t grow like mushrooms. He learned to sew and darn, so he didn’t have to go buy new clothes every time he put holes in the ones he already had (not that he walks around in ratty clothes all the time, but work clothes are more durable anyway and it’s alright if they get kind of messed up).

He’s learned to make his own preserves and learned how to do his own canning. How to cure his own meat. He’s learned how to do a lot of his own home and farm repairs which cuts down on how often he has to call in a professional from town, and only once in a while has to hire on farmhands to help, and not very many. Usually in the height of summer.

When he does go into town he shops in bulk no matter what he’s buying, where he can. And he shows up to sell at the farmer’s market, too. When he first started doing that, it was almost not worth it because he still got the stares and the people who would avoid him like he was diseased, which meant fewer people were buying from him just because they had a bias against what he used to do when he was a kid. But after a while that stopped, when they realized Len had a lot of quality stuff to sell and they wanted it. It’s the one time Len will get chatty if someone wants to talk to him, because he knows that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar and he actually does have good communication skills and he can be funny. After a while, at least at the farmer’s market, people stop avoiding him and giving him weird looks and instead smile, chat, and buy his goods.

Still, Len has a reputation as being somewhat of a recluse at this point and it’s mixed up with his reputation as an ex-con. Neither of those reputations help on their own, and together they’re even worse. So, outside the farmer’s market if people don’t have to be nice to him and acknowledge him, they often don’t.

But, Len doesn’t care. He seldom has to deal with it these days, and he likes his farm. It’s hard, challenging work and it’s fulfilling in a way he hadn’t expected. And it’s not like he’s devoid of human company there. His sister comes to visit often and so does his friend Mick who will help him out while he’s visiting even though he doesn’t have to. Lisa helps out in the house a bit, insisting the place needs a feminine touch, although Len knows it’s really just a combination of her worrying about her big brother because that’s what family does…and snooping. She really thinks he needs to start dating.

Len isn’t sure who she thinks he’s going to date, since nobody in town seems like they want to consider that. He’s pretty sure if he asked someone out they’d probably call the cops. And while the cops don’t hassle him anymore, he’s not sure he trusts them not to just make something up if someone ever did call the cops on him.

Lisa just gives him this look like he’s an idiot but she loves him anyway.

Len can live with that.

One issue that he hadn’t counted on, which he really should have because he remembered his own high school days, was the teenagers out in his goddamn fields. He’s caught teenagers making out in his fields more times than he can count, and he’s found used condoms and abandoned blankets from encounters he didn’t catch in the act even more times than that. Used beer cans and whiskey bottles, too.

And he’s not even going to start on how many times he’s had to break up some idiot teenagers having a literal party on his damn property like they owned it.

Sometimes, Len has to admit he has a little fun with scaring them off. Just a little.

So, when he’s in the field as a freak storm blows up and starts doing damage he’s only mildly startled to run across a young guy of indeterminate age in his field as he’s headed back to the main house. The fact that he found someone on his property, in his fucking field, is not surprising at all. The surprising part is that it’s the middle of the day and the kid is unconscious. There’s nothing around to suggest there was a party going on last night, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t. It could be that there was in a different location on his property, or even in the field…it’s a big field, and the kid wandered off and passed out away from the beer cans and liquor bottles.

But, Len can’t wake the kid up and the storm is really picking up and fuck is that hail?? So, he picks the kid up bridal style, which isn’t a hardship since the kid isn’t that heavy despite being male, and carries him to the barn where there’s shelter and up to the hay loft where he can lay him down somewhere soft. He’d already gotten the animals in and had just been checking the field for good measure when he’d found the kid.

He doesn’t want to think about what might have happened to him out in the field if Len hadn’t found him, in a storm like this. And he goes a little pale, and a little green, at the thought of what awful fate would’ve befallen the kid if there hadn’t been a storm and it was the time of year to harvest and Len had some of his big (and very dangerous) farm equipment out in the field.

He literally has to cover his mouth for a second and close his eyes and try to think of something else, before breathing a sigh of relief that that was not what had happened.

It’d never happened to Len before, but he’d heard stories from other farmers before who’d been farming longer than him and…he’d seen some of the reality ER shows on TV that proved those weren’t entirely far-fetched stories.

Len would have preferred to get the kid to the main house, but he hadn’t wanted to risk it since the storm had gotten worse just as he’d made it to the barn doors.

Now that he got a look at the kid, though, he was probably not a teenager. He was also pretty easy on the eyes, if Len did say so himself. But, then he chastised himself for that. Sure, it was a natural reaction to check out a hot guy, but this hot guy was unconscious and Len wasn’t even sure if he was going to wake up and he couldn’t call for help for the kid just yet. Instead of checking out how hot this guy was, Len should be checking for a pulse to make sure he was even still alive and then hoping beyond hope that by picking the kid up and moving him the way he has he hasn’t made any injuries the kid might have that Len didn’t know about…worse. Couldn’t you paralyze someone like that? Shit, he hopes this isn’t that serious.

So, he thinks he can be forgiven for putting his hands on the kid again. For checking for that pulse (relieved when he found it and it was strong), and doing a gentle check of his body to make sure there were no broken bones or other injuries that might be something to worry about or that needed attending to.

All he found was a huge goose egg on the back of the kid’s head. No wonder he was unconscious.

Satisfied the the guy was probably alright, he stayed next to him and watched him, hoping that the head injury wasn’t too bad and hoping that the kid would wake up and tell him what the hell happened and whether or not he thinks he needs a hospital, and whether or not he should just take the kid to the hospital whether he wants to go or not once the storm passes.

If Len reaches out a few times to smooth out the guy’s hair a bit (not that it does any good), it’s only because of his instincts as a big brother who basically raised his little sister. No ulterior interests whatsoever.

When the kid finally does wake up, the storm is still raging and Len is wondering if they’ll have to spend the night in the barn. But, his mind stops wandering when he sees the most beautiful pair of hazel eyes he’s ever seen staring up at him with confusion written all over that adorable face he’d been looking at for the past few hours.


End file.
